Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died Mar. 5 at 58, bringing to an end the adventurous life of one of Latin America’s most confounding personalities. Here are nine of our favorite facts about El Comandante:

1. Chávez banned Coke Zero in Jun. 2009, claiming the low-calorie cola was unhealthy — but he didn’t elaborate on why. “The product should be withdrawn from circulation to preserve the health of Venezuelans,” he told a government news agency as reported by Reuters.

2. He also vowed to ban Halloween during his weekly TV and radio show, Aló Presidente, in October 2005 — calling the holiday an “imperialist terror” and part of the American tradition of “putting fear into other nations, putting fear into their own people.”

4. But he didn’t like golf. On Aló Presidente in Jul. 2009, he called the game “a bourgeois sport” and cited golf carts as proof of players’ laziness. Chávez loyalists had called for the country’s two major golf courses to be shut down, arguing that too many poor people were living in slums while the golf courses were being impeccably maintained.

8. He was also a big fan of fellow Latin American lefty Fidel Castro. He joined a quartet to sing “Happy Birthday” to the Cuban revolutionary on his 75th birthday in 2001.

9. Chávez had an artistic side: in Dec. 2011, he gave the President of Argentina Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner a painting of himself with Néstor Kirchner, her late husband and the former Argentinian president. “People cannot believe that I painted the picture,” Chávez said. “I had to use color theory and everything.”

Such a grave threat to the security of the US removed (sarcasm). I know I sleep better at night.As much as they ridicule him funny how he kept getting reelected by his own people.As far as coke goes there is more than one person on this planet who knows how unhealthy soft-drinks are; keep drinking em America